


Drink coffee and wine and be merry (to know and to understand)

by Little_Firestar84



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AO3 1 Million, Gen, Jealous Oliver, Lazarus Pit, Post Season 2 Finale, Season 3, Sort of AU, Tommy Merlyn is Alive, Unplanned Pregnancy, pre-Undertaking, slow-burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-12 12:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Firestar84/pseuds/Little_Firestar84
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After discovering that Oliver was the Arrow, Tommy seeks out Felicity, hoping that she could help him understand the reasons behind his best friend's alter-ego. What was born as a mean to understand and seek a shoulder to rely on, soon blossoms into an amazing friendship... and when Oliver tells Felicity he loves her only to have Slade looking for her, Tommy decides enough is enough: either his friend is an idiot, or a jerk. Either way, it's time for the Arrow to open his eyes and see his IT Girl for who she really is... disconnected one-shots, all set in the same universe. Now following season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dariaw](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Dariaw).



> written for the "Friends will be friends fest" @dreamwidth; prompted by daria who asked for a "Arrow, Felicity & Tommy, if they had gotten a chance to become friends"

Despite what people tended to believe, Tommy wasn’t an idiot. He was still able to do 2+2, so, after discovering that Ollie was the Vigilante, it didn’t take him long to get to another certain detail- the blonde always at Ollie’s side, who appeared at Verdant like from thin air and who had been around even when Ollie was behaving like the womanizer he used to be-despite not being his type at all.

So, yes-non stupid, plus missBlondie, added to Ollie being the Arrow… she worked for him, definitely. (Well, both of him, actually.)

He was tempted to scream and shout at her, and if he had been a lesser gentleman (because he was a gentleman, when he wanted to be) he would have slapped her. She seemed nice and smart, and he couldn’t understand why she was working with… _him._ He needed to get the why: because if she was doing it on her own accord, maybe, just maybe… It meant that Ollie wasn’t such a monster.

He approached her one evening, when the club had already closed. She was sitting at the bar, drinking red wine and looking at her tablet; she readjusted her glasses on her nose, and he felt like smiling. Yes, Felicity was younger than them, but she seemed even younger than that. His mind went back to many years priors, when he had been still a kid with both his loving parents, and had wished for a baby sister to fight for a valiantly defend. 

In his mind, she had always been blonde with blue eyes (even if both his parents had dark hair) and glasses and had pink dresses like some kind of fairy-tale princess. 

Also, in his mind, he would have defended her from Ollie’s charm, because she would have been just charming and funny and lovable and had all the guys falling at her feet, and Tommy had the impression that Felicity too needed defending from the Arrow. Just not like the criminals of the city. Just not like Laurel and Sarah and the sister of his childish dreams. 

So, he went at her side, and once her glass was empty, he refilled it. asking simply. “Rough day?”

She answered that yes, it had been, and then she looked at the guy in front of her, biting her lips. Tommy, again, reminded himself that he wasn’t an idiot, and understood that a)the problem was Ollie/Arrow related and b)she didn’t know if she could talk with him. 

So, Tommy took the reins of the conversation- because God knew if he didn’t need someone to talk about this whole mess, and if she wanted to listen, and maybe talk too… well, what was that old saying, catching two birds with one stone? Yeah. Definitely his point- They _both_ needed someone to talk to, and they both didn’t have anyone to talk to. Despite each other. 

“I just… I just would like for him to talk with me.” he simply said, and in that few words he meant everything: about his “stunt” with Sara, about his dad and the Island, and about what he had become and _why._

“Yeah, I know” Felicity grunted. “I mean, I’m not saying I want to know, like, everything, but considering that I am helping him out, and well, we are both co-conspirators as we both know who he is, but we are not talking to the police… I think he could just say a word every now and then, right? And instead, he just glares and talk with his Arrow voice… not that you know anything about his Arrow voice, except you did, but he was the Arrow in that moment and not Oliver. Not that they are two different persons, because they aren’t, and of course you know it because he told you so when he unmasked when he saved your father and, sorry, I’ll stop talking in 3, 2, 1…” she closed her eyes, feeling like crushing her head against the bar. 

He smiled, and offered her his hand. He hadn’t laughed in a long time, since he had discovered of the Arrow, abandoned Laurel and came back to his dad, and it felt good. “Tommy Merlyn, hi”

“Oh, yes, I know. I mean, you are always around Oliver, well, were, and also on magazines. Not that I read gossip magazines…” he lifted his eyebrows, smirking. “Not that there’s anything wrong with reading them, if you happen to read them. Not that I know if you do, because it’s not like I checked your accounts and see what you and your father were up to and if there were… any…illegal…activities.” She took back her hand, and looked at the floor. “Felicity Smoak, nice to meet you, Mr. Merlyn.” 

And even if she had been checking them out- under Ollie’s orders, probably- he couldn’t help but laugh, a belly laughter that he couldn’t control, and without even knowing why she was doing it… she joined him. 

“Oh, God, now I know why Ollie keeps you around…” 

“Nah, it’s because of my talented hands…” she said, moving her fingers in the air; then, she understood how it sounded like, and that her filter had again malfunctioned. “Not that… computer. I use my hands on a computer. Not for indecent things! Not that there’s nothing wrong if you have a porn video or two going around… not that I know anything about it… but, you know, breaking the law here, so, no judgment, all right? If there is something to judge at all. Witch I am sure there’s not, because…”

“3,2,1,?” Tommy asked, and she smiled, stopped talking and tanked him. 

They spent the rest of the night in complete silence, until Felicity didn’t call Ollie on a tip, and she left, back in Verdant’s underground- at least now he knew where Ollie hid.He didn’t think anything about it anymore, until, a couple of weeks later, she called him out of the blue, and she talked and talked and talked.

“It’s just that, I don’t really have anyone to call at the end of the day, because I can’t tell anyone of what we are doing. And I know that Ollie tells that I should call him, but c’mon, how I am supposed to? Talk with Oliver when I want to broke Oliver’s neck because he has been an idiot? Not that I could actually break his neck, but, you know…”

They talked-actually, Felicity did, for hours, and when she hung up it was already morning. He was starting to get Ollie, but there was so much eh still didn’t understand, still didn’t know- but the same went for the rest of his “team Arrow, as Felicity called it. 

And anyway… now he wasn’t alone any longer. And if and when he needed to talk… she was going to be there. 

It was a start. As good as any. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the season 2 finale, Tommy, freshly resurrected via Lazarus Pit, gets back to Starling, and seeks out Felicty, learning about how Oliver tricked Slade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted for this story to be a one-shot, but i decided that it could work very well as a prologue to something else. so... here I am, with my first Arrow Multi-chapter.

When Felicity returns, Tommy is waiting for her at her apartment- or better yet, what’s left of it. After his return from the world of the dead- and maybe even before, between shared coffees and glasses of red wine- she has become the closest thing he has to… a confident? A best friend? He can’t really say. Of course he is still “friends” with Ollie, but… it’s just different. They are always guarded around each other, not really knowing what they are supposed to say or do- unthinkable, for them. 

Unless Felicity is around them: she is the middle-man (well, woman) and with her babbling, she can always find a way to make them smile, to break the ice and whatsoever. 

She is a ray of sunlight, his Felicity. Only, she isn’t his- nor he wants her to be. She is his little sister (surrogate little sister, he corrects himself: the blonde told him Thea is his actual sister, so… yeah, better not to think about it, because every time he does, he remember the time Thea kissed him, and oh god, in few states incest is still a crime and she is his sister, and, and…) and he is fine with it. He may love her, but he isn’t in love with her, and the same goes for the MIT graduate: her heart still beats for Ollie. 

For that idiotic, jerk of a man. 

“Been around playing the archer, you too?” he asks with mirth in his voice as soon as she opens the door, and Felicity simply jumps in his arms, her arms around his neck with such a strength he feels like passing out- and he tells her so. 

They part, and a teary Felicity simply looks at him, shaking her head. It’s been a while since they had last seen each other; few months ago, Tommy had been resurrected via Lazarus Pit by his father’s former allies, the league of Assassins (yes, it still feels weird, even just thinking about it in her head. No, it doesn’t get less weird just because time passes.), only to be dropped at his best friend’s liar; but when Malcom had approached him back in Starling after a while, Tommy had decided that it was better to leave for a while. He had traveled the world, not as the rich brat he sued to be but as a man who did his best to help people out, but as soon as he had seen what had happened in Starling, the death and the destruction in the wake of Blood’s rise to power, he knew he had to return. A part of him would have loved to get back before, for Moira’s funeral, but the world still believed him to be dead (thank you very much, resurrection) so a phone call to Ollie via his secret phone was all he had been able to get. 

But now, this was something he couldn’t postpone any longer. So he had retuned, and now, here he is. At Felicity’s- because as much as he loves Ollie (well… brotherly loves Ollie) Felicity is… well, she is Felicity, and she needs him as much (even not more) as he needs her.

Felicity jumps in his arms, squealing like she was a child, and her arms around his neck are so strong (seriously, what has Ollie done with his gal Friday?) he has to asks her to release him if she doesn’t want to kill him (again).

When they part, she looks at him with teary eyes, shaking her head, and she is in silence. Which, as he has gotten to learn, it’s never a good thing. Normally, it means that she is either mad or suffering because either Ollie is being stupid and idiotic on a regular basis, or he is being stupid and idiotic case by case. 

He sighs and groans, running his hands over his face. He’s been back for-what, three hours? And has seen Felicity just five minutes before, and yet those two idiots already managed to frustrate him beyond reason. 

(Sometimes, he really misses the League’s dungeons.)

“What has that idiot done this time?” he asks her. he makes to fall on her couch, but at the last second he remembers her place has been robbed and the couch is probably in the street anyway. This just makes him more frustrated: he may not be living the life of the billionaire brat any longer, but he has traveled very poorly, and his back is killing him (and he could kill for a decent spot where he could actually rest. As in, falling asleep without having to be scared of being robbed or killing himself.).

“What? No! he hasn’t done anything! I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t done anything at all, just, nothing in particular. Even if he does particular things. What I mean, it’s that this time around he…”

“Felicity.” He stops her, hands on his hips, and he looks at her like a disappointed parent. Which is kind of scary. Especially because he is Tommy. As in, Tommy Merlyn, king of pranks and wild nights and famous womanizer and wild card, so- yeah, lecturing and disappointed Tommy is scary. A lot. Even if she has seen a lot and been through a lot and not even a week ago Slade was trying to get her killed and…

Oh, god. Her last week. Her terrible, awful, last week, when, for few seconds, she had believed Oliver Queen wanted her, loved her and was about to kiss her, just to discover it was all a rouse to trap Slade. 

She falls on the ground, cross-legged, hands joined under her chin as she looks in the void, and suddenly, Tommy is at her side, and a glass of red appears like from thin air. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks her as she grabs the wine, drinking it all in one single gulp. Felicity may not be a lady, but she normally behaves like a girl. To be that out of control – when sober- it means that there is, indeed, trouble even if she denies it. 

“Felicity, what has that idiot done this time?” he asks again, this time serious (and even scarier)

Felicity stays in silence- really a bad move, because it means that things are really, really bad, and it’s not like Tommy can’t read her like a book – and then sighs, looking at the ground, feeling… well, maybe defeated it’s too big of a word, but… sad? Yeah, Tommy thinks: she is definitely sad. And, he thinks, a bit disappointed. 

“He told me he loved me.” she tells him, looking at Tommy, snapping her tongue like she often does; she sees his eyes getting huge, and a grin appearing on his face (he has always been a shipper) but she shakes her head, grunting. “Yeah, only, it was a ruse to get Slade Wilson to get me. so that he could try to kill me- instead of laurel. Did I tell you he had Laurel? Because Oliver still loves her like crazy, and, yeah, he wanted for me to get close enough to Wilson to dose him with the cure and…”

She can’t end the sentence- not that there’s really too much to add anyway- because Tommy jumps on his feet, as red as a tomato, and if she looks better, Felicity may swear there’s steam leaving his ears. 

“HE. DID. WHAT?” He screams, pacing the room, punctuating each word. 

“He, uhm, told me he loved me because…”

“I’ve heard it the first time! Only, I hoped you were joking, or… I don’t know!” Tommy rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Either Ollie is an idiot and he hasn’t understood yet that this girl is crazy in love with him, or he knew and didn’t care as long as his plan worked, thus making of him a complete asshole. 

He doesn’t know which is worse.

“It’s fine, really. I mean, I know I’m not his type. Because , hello?, Sara?  Laurel ?  Elena? Shado? And let’s not forget Isabel. and the others. Those are the ones I remember. And…” she sniffs a little, and as Tommy joins her again on the ground, she allows her head to fall on his shoulder. She doesn’t cry- that’s not who she is, after all, but he knows there’s a part of her that’s suffering because of Ollie’s actions. 

“You all right?” he asks her after they’ve been in silence for a while, drinking their red wine. 

“Yeah.” She says, looking around her desolated place. “Guess I should get back to the foundry. See what I can fix.” She stands, and offers her hand to Tommy to help him stand, “Want to come along?”

Tommy looks at her hand, laughing behind his teeth. “Yeah.” He says, as he allows her to help him up. 

Felicity may act as everything is all right, but he knows her. he knows that she is suffering and she is a little bit broken. Because of Ollie and his words. 

Well… his BFF needs to learn a lesson. And he’ll be more than happy to be the one teaching him.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the outcome of the Third season premiere, Tommy and Felicity talks about Oliver's feeling for the hacker....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written for a while for this fandom, but Felicity was on The Flash last nigh, so, yeah, I wrote another chapter- this time, set at the beginning of Season 3. There may be another one in a few days, as I'd like to see Felicity and Tommy talking about Tea...

When he sees (kind of- more like spies) Oliver inviting Felicity out, Tommy honestly thinks that his (sort of) plan of making his friend jealous worked; Felicity is happy and radiant when she gets ready for her dinner-date (even if Tommy prefers her with the glasses and the ponytail), and even if there has been the explosion, Tommy believes that his best friend’s heart and head may be in the same place. 

Well, he is proven wrong when Felicity gets back from seeing John’s baby, storming her apartment, slamming doors, throwing coat and shoes everywhere and then gulping down like it was nothing a glass of red wine. 

And then another one. 

Until, when she is about the drink the third one, he finally finds the courage to actually enters the kitchen and ask her (tentatively- Felicity can be quite scary. And she gets even scarier when she is drunk, ergo blatantly honest) if everything is all right.

He regrets the question as soon as he sees her eyes getting bigger and bigger, as she was the big bad wolf from the fairy tales. 

“Just, out of curiosity, which part of _this,”_ she says, indicating herself. “makes you believe that I may be even remotely _all right,_ uhm? Because last time I checked, people who’s all right don’t run in their own apartment getting drunk on red wine with their recently resurrected….” She keeps going on, and indicates him with a shaky gesture of her hand. “… best friend, surrogate brother, best friend of the guy I’m crazy in love with, moral support or…. Whatever you are.”

Tommy looks at her with huge eyes- probably the same look Red Riding Hood was showing when she got she had the Big Bad Wolf right before her and not Granny, and without adding a word he leaves the room, keeping his trap shout.

He gets back to her a couple of hours later, the bottle of red lacking at least another glass and Felicity in that mood she gets when she sobers up completely; she is on her couch, he knees folded up underneath her tiny frame, and she is looking in the void while playing distractedly with a lock of hair; Tommy sits on the opposite end of the couch, and reaches out to her, one hand on her knee. Still, he doesn’t talk, and it’s amazing, because as talkative as she can be, between them, even if they hadn’t known each other for so long, there’s no need for words. 

“He told me that he loves me.” she simply says; Tommy looks at her, his eyebrows lifted in a silent question, as he was aware that his best friend had (sort of) confessed his feelings to Felicity few months before, as Slade Wilson was taking over Starling and Oliver wanted to trap his ally turned enemy with the hacker’s help. 

Felicity reads all right Tommy’s question, and sits up; she is laughing and smiling, but she also looks hysteric, and Merlyn just knows something is wrong (and it’s probably Ollie’s fault, too).

“This evening.” She clarifies, erasing with the back of her hand few renegade tears. “Oliver told me this evening that he loves me. Then he went on reminding me that until he is the Arrow we can’t be together, and…”

_ No,  _ Tommy thinks closing his eyes and taking a big breath. _Please God, tell me he didn’t do what I fear he may have done…_

“He asked me to wait for him. Sort of. Well, he actually did, but, it’s just that…”

But all of Felicity’s words are lost to him, as his worst fear comes true. the idiot (his new nick-name for Ollie) dared to ask Felicity to wait for him. For something that may never come to pass. Her. A smart and beautiful woman with her good share of admirers. 

“I’m not gonna do it. I mean, I know I’m not going to stop loving him just like that. “she smiles and snaps her fingers in the air. “But I’m not closing myself to the chance of falling for someone just because he doesn’t think he can be both The Arrow and Oliver Queen. It wasn’t right for him to ask, and it wouldn’t be right for me to wait for him- when I know all too well that I could very well spend my whole life waiting for him and he may never be ready, all right?”

She keeps talking, and Tommy smiles. Then, he takes her in his arms, and while she sobs in his (very expensive) shirt (dirtying it with mascara and lipstick and eyeliner and everything else), he rubs her back, and kisses her hair. 

He doesn’t say anything. 

Because, frankly, he doesn’t know what he should say. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "How many billionaires do you know, darling?" Or, Donna Smoaks meets Tommy- who's been believed dead by the whole world.

He hasn’t been at Felicity’s apartment in weeks; not because he didn’t want to be around her- God forbidden, she is his new BFF- but frankly, because… well, with daddy dearest around town (even if they haven’t met yet), Tommy would rather prefer being everywhere but in Starling. 

Being around his father, seeing him, getting to ask him questions…. It would be too much, and there are things Tommy isn’t ready to know yet (such as: why am I alive again? Besides the whole Lazarus Pit thing; in the bigger scheme of things, I mean. And, just out of curiosity: did you had the brilliant idea of resurrecting me, or what it the League of Assassins, or whatever they are called?)

Ergo, he has been away from Starling. And from his “family- because there’s too much of “his father” in them, they’ve been marked too much by his action, his presence in their lives that, with the mere thought of Malcom in his mind, he would just… see him, looking at them. 

(And besides, he hates pity, and he knew they would get sorry for him at the mere thought of daddy dearest, so, thanks, but no thanks.)

But the heart wants what the heart wants, so, even if he isn’t in love with Felicity, he just _loves_ her, and when he decides that he has enough of beinga coward and trapped by his past, again he goes to see her first thing first (because she may be sorry for him, but at least she isn’t judgmental or “sorry I slept with your ex two days after you broke up/sorry I slept with your best-friend two days or so after we broke up” kind of awkward.

“Guess what? Daddy’s back!” he screams with fun in his voice as soon as he enters (uninvited and not awaited) in her apartment, and when he sees the scene on the couch of his bff, he kind of get why. Also, he feels probably like poor Felicity often does- awkward and embarrassed. 

Because Felicity isn’t alone- she is eating ice-cream with a forty-something, terribly hot blonde woman, clad in what he assumes being a dress, despite looking more like a blue negligee.

Felicity is red with embarrassment, the other woman, instead, looks… radiant, for a lack of better word. 

“Uhm…. Hi?” Tommy asks tentatively, hands in his pockets; Felicity groans something hiding her face, than, from her position on the couch (where she probably wants to disappear into), she indicates the two other people in the room. 

“Tommy, my mother Donna. Mum, this is Tommy…”

“Merlyn!” Donna again, for the third time in a little less than two days, ends the introductions in her daughter’s place, and goes to shake the young man’s hand, and stood in silence for a while, studying him and biting her own lips like to avoid saying stupid or awkward; Tommy gets why, and he speaks for her, pretending to be joking. 

“Yeah, I know I look extremely good for someone who’s been dead a couple of years.” He chuckles, then he shakes his head and gets serious, darker; it’s the first time he is breaching the subject of his return with someone, and he is well aware that his next words will be a lie, but he guess he’ll have to practice them- sooner or later, the world will gets word that he is around again, and he will have to explain what the hell had happened. "I've been serisouly injured, and I've been in a come until six months ago." 

Donna, still shaking his hand, turns to look at her daughter, amused. “Seriously, though, how many billionaires do you know?”

This time, and strangely, the IT girl takes it with a laugh, and chuckles. “Well, there was last year, when we went to Gotham for business, and I ended up having dinner with Bruce Wayne…”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tommy remembers when he first met his dad for teh first time after his return and explains how he got back from the death, and Felicity deals with Oliver joining the League...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There should be just a few more chapters of this, all will be available ion the enxt few days, and anyway, before next week's episode because I'm going to do things, and if it has to be out of continuity, I wnat it to be out of continuity before knowing too well what will happen...

The first few weeks with Thea are…. Strange for Tommy. Mostly, because their father is there too, sometimes, trying to look over them in his own peculiar way.

Father- not dad. He had hardly played the part in the past, but right now, it’s even more complicated; he likes pretending to care- and maybe he does, in his own twisted way- and yet, caring and fighting to protect his own family bring to destruction what he assured them he treasured the most: his children.

But maybe, Tommy has reached a point where he doesn’t care any longer- he has a new family, after all, one not entirely made out of blood, and he has decided so the moment his father returned in the picture, when Malcom discovered his son’s resurrection…

_ He walks into Verdant’s basement, ready to fight them, but already knowing he’ll not- they need his help, after all, to go after the league. Maybe he’ll not join them, but he can teach them, even if Blondie doesn’t like it. He can understand where she comes from, but he is the only one who can help them out: whatever they like it or not, he is the only one with inside knowledge of the League’s ways of life.  _

_ “Do you have any idea of what you are doing?” he hears the voice at his back, and Malcom doesn’t know if being scared, happy or fearing madness- many times he had heard his beloved wife’s voice after she had passed, and this could be the same.  _

_ “Tommy?” he asks, tentatively, hope gazing his soul as he turns and looks at his son; he walks slowly towards the young man, and reaches out to him, and touches him, grabs his arms, his shoulders… _

_ And he is real. He is alive and well and real.Tommy is back, alive, and in his life once more.  _

_ … and as soon as he feels his father trying to deepen the contact, he takes a step back, and looks at him with a mix of anger, resentment and… hate? Desire of vengeance? Not even Malcom can fully understand it, and yet, he does, as he has betrayed his children too many times.  _

_ He’d like to ask his son how is it possible, but Tommy beats him to it, talking first. “The League brought me back to destroy you. That’s how much Ra’s despise you now.” _

_ Malcom chuckles once, quite darkly. “So, this is why you are here, son? To kill me on the Demon’s head’s orders?” _

_ Tommy shakes his head, he is resolute, and for maybe the first time in his life, he feels like an adult. “No, Nyssa and Sara freed me. They thought me to control myself after I left the pit… Nyssa was the one who resurrected me. Her father told her I was to be her responsibility, or so I’ve been told.” _

_ “You’re lucky then. Had you been The Demon’s head’s responsibility, he would have used you, and then discharged you like you were yesterday trash.” _

_ “Lucky me, then.” Tommy chuckles darkly and joins the others, talking with his father at his own back, not caring if he’ll hear him or not. “Be careful whit what you are doing- I’m watching you.” _

“Are you all right? On second thoughts, don’t answer me, because I know you aren’t all right. None of us is. I mean, it was bad enough having Oliver delivered to the League of Assassins, but knowing he’s been brainwashed? Not that I’m particularly shocked. After all he isn’t so prone on killing any longer, and with a name such as League of Assassins of course they would want him to kill, and the only way to get him to do so would be to brainwash him. I mean, I’m not even sure Oliver would kill anyone if the life of someone he loved was in danger and….”

He smiles, leaning against the mainframe- or whatever it is- of her super-computer back at Palmer’s headquarters, the new headquarter of Arrow Inc., as he likes to call it. He puts a finger on her lips, and blushing, Felicity closes her eyes and shouts up. “One, Two, Three?”

“Yep.” She simply says, still as red as a tomato, remembering her mother’s words all too well- too many young billionaires around her, and besides, she and Tommy are supposed to be friends, and yet there are few things she hasn’t told him yet. And it’s not like he doesn’t have any secrets of his own, especially concerning his “resurrection”, and besides, she should know better than anyone that sometimes…

“Felicity? I can see that you stopped thinking but are thinking non-stop in that brain of yours, all right? I need you to stop it and talk with me. As a normal human being not yourself, all right?”

She nods, huffing- because frankly, sometimes he is so right she can’t stand him. Also, he is way too charming and sext for his own good, but it’s not like she’ll ever tell him that. 

“Hello Felicity, I’m not too bad, even if I have to be strong and help Thea out with this whole back from the dead via Lazarus’ Pit business. How are you doing?”

“I broke up with Ray.” She simply says, like it was the most normal thing to say. or had anything to do with what they are supposed to talk about- aka Oliver and Malcom and Thea and etc.

Tommy bits his lips, offering her coffee and taking one for himself from the closest carafe. “Yeah, I guessed as much since the guy was always around you non-stop and then disappeared in thin air.”

“Yeah, well, I guess he sort of had a feeling his girlfriend was going to throw herself at the former owner of his corporation. Which, in case you were wondering, she did.”

“Oh, the last decent girl on the planet..” He sighs, theatrically, pretending to be hurt. “Seriously, though, I know that you like to grab whatever you fancy because you are very _carpe diem_ , but, seriously, thought, didn’t you fear that after having…” he waves his hands, trying to say it without having to actually utter the words. “That you would have lived yourlife never forgetting him?”

“Ok, first, as good as Oliver is, and trust me, he is good, he isn’t God’s gift to women. Second, I was just trying to distract him to knock him out.”

“With _Sex?_ You wanted to knock Ollie out with sex?”

She grunts. “No, of course not! I distracted him with sex, lowered his guard then I knocked him out with the magical sleeping pills from the sorceress or whatever is called the woman who resurrects people from the Pit. Which is not crazy or weird, not at all.”

The fall into silence. They so don’t feel like sharing pieces of information about Oliver’s abilities in the bedroom. Besides… yeah. Talking about him still hurts, despite the whole _Lost but never forgotten_ business. 

And then… then Felicity reaches out for him, and falls into his embrace, and allows herself to cry.

Because right now, Tommy is the only one she can do that with. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Thea leaves to be with Roy, the team deals with the repercussions of what happened in Nanda Parbat... especially Felicity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday I wrote non-stop. So, yes, in the last 2 to 3 days wait for updates on this because I'm going to end this before next episode. Also: how cool would it be if I reached 200 kudos? :)

He just got her back, and part of Tommy is glad that the only awkwardness they had both felt wasn’t because they had never knew they were siblings or because she loves her family (and her dad) any less now that they know they are siblings.

They can even laugh, and Thea Queen actually blushes, remembering that time when, almost completely drunk, she had tried to make a move on him and to steal kiss from the man she now knows being her big half-brother. Well, one of her big half-brothers, at least, as they both still bad thinking of Ollie like lost to them forever and ever. 

“Are you coming to visit?” she asks, tentatively, and in her eyes Tommy can see fear, because for how strong she is... she is just a little girl who had lost the people she loved the most in the world, and has been left with him as her sole anchor. 

“You don’t even have to ask, Speedy. Of course I’ll visit you and Roy.” He says, tears burning his eyes, as he kissed her forehead, cupping her face with his large, warm hands. 

He has a moment of hesitation, though, when he says his sister’s boyfriend’s name: should he call him Dick, even with her, hoping that they’ll both get used to his new identity of Richard “Dick” Greyson and they’ll not end up calling him Roy in front of other people?

“I’ll miss you guys. All of you.” Thea hugs all of them, but when it’s time to do so with Felicity, she indulges herself with the blonde; they were the women who loved Ollie the most, and are the ones who lost the most after… after he…. Died? Can she say, think of him as dead? “Take care of my brother.” She tells Felicity before entering in the car that will reunite her and her beloved. “And you, Tommy, take care of her. She’s going to need you. More than anything.”

Tommy doesn’t answer- he doesn’t need to, he simply nods, and stays there, as he looks at her leaving- she may not be gone forever, and yet, there’s a part of him that’s breaking, fearing that this is the last he’ll ever see of Thea Queen, the girl who’s been like a sister to him long before they discovered they were blood-related.

As they all return into John and Layla’s house, Tommy grabs Felicity’s hand with such a strength and intensity it almost terrifies them both; they may not be in love. But they’ve come to love each other, in the same way that Thea and Tommy do- like Family. 

As Layla and Dig retreat to the kitchen to prepare lunch, Tommy spends his time looking outside the window at his beloved city kissed by the night, and Felicity goes to sit on the couch, looking at little Sara in her crib right before her; it seems the girl is smiling at her, and she doesn’t know if smiling in return or crying, because…. Because….

“Felicity? Take this.” John offers her a glass of red that just smells great, like sex in a glass, and she smiles of a tired, sad smile, and simply takes it, without saying a word. She takes one little sip, barely wetting her lips, but then she abandons the glass, and gets back at looking at Sara, her hands joined in front of her, her eyes far away, somewhere where her mind probably is, too. 

“Ehy, I know that when your hangover is having an hangover it feels like crap, but before that? Trust me: for a short while you’ll forget everything and maybe you’ll manage to fall asleep.” Tommy smiles, and she knows that he is talking like that because he cares, but, well, he is not helping. And it’s not his fault, exactly. 

It’s hers. Only, she doesn’t know how to explain it. Or if she should. Maybe she could do like Nightcrawler, like “things go banf into the night”, or whatever.Yeah, she is doing it again: she is rambling in her head. Why can’t she tell him, tell them? She isn’t scared- well, actually, she is, but not for the reason one would expect- it’s just that… it’s sort of unreal, and if she tells anyone, well, it will be very, very, very real. Like, big time real. And she is so not ready for that. 

So, instead, she goes for “Yeah, well, I know myself, and I’m sort of a sloppy, sad and depressed drunk. Which means that if I’ll get drunk not only I’ll be sad and depressed, but I’ll get you all depressed as well. Which you already are, so you’ll get sadder and sadder, and more and more depressed, which will lead at you hating me because I made you sadder and sadder and more and more depressed and…”

“Three, two, one.” He stops her, quite serious, looking at her like a stern parent on the way to reprimand his own child. “Felicity, it’s a great wine. You don’t want to get stoned? It’s all right, it shows that you are decent and normal, but… you like fine things, and this wine here? It is a fine thing.” He takes the glass from the small coffee table and offers it to her, and Felicity silently accepts, and yet, she behaves like she was scared, like the glass could actually beat her; she brings it at her lips, but before they could touch the rim, she pushes it back into Tommy’s hands, almost panicking. 

“I can’t, all right? I can’t drink wine any longer!” she almost screams, waking up Sara; the child, though, just stirs, and looks at them like they were a cartoon show. 

“Felicity, it’s very sweet of you to stop drinking because of me, but…” Laurel says, almost too sweetly. Felicity hates how now she loves the older woman. 

“What? No! don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t stop drinking wine AND coffee because of you, laurel! Trust me, I don’t think that I could ever love anyone enough to get rid of coffee and wine altogether. Well, maybe my own blood. But, as in, children, because, frankly? I’d never do that for my mother. Not that my mother would ever asked me to, because it would mean that she had to stop too, and she’d never renounce to wine. I’m almost positive that she’d never renounce even if my life was on the line, and she loves me. You’ve seen that, right? You know what kind of hyper-protective mother she can be when she wants…

“Ok, ok, you know what? As sad as we are that you are not doing it because of your love for Laurel, until you are not doing it because you’ve secretly joined AA believed it to be a problem- she slaps Tommy on the arm, quite angry as her expression suggest- which I think you didn’t, there’s no need for you to tell us why, suddenly, you’ve decided to abandon Bacco’s way of living.”

Felicity looks at him, biting her lips and scratching the skin of her fingertips. She isn’t so sure she doesn’t want to keep it shout. Maybe she can tell them- after all, if she didn’t misunderstood Thea’s words, the girl was sort of aware of what’s going on. 

“Felicity… Do you want to tell us what’s going on?” Laurel asks as she sits at Felicity’s side.

“I’m… not sure. I’m quite sure you’ll get mad. And maybe disappointed. And definitely angry. And not only towards me.”

John laughs of that laughter that she loves, the one that makes you believe that everything is going to be all right. “Felicity, the only way I could be disappointed in you would be if you told us you’ve decided to work for LuthorCorp.”

She groans, laughing gutturally in a very un-lady like manner. “Nope, still working for Ray here. Even if I don’t see that happening in the future. I’m pretty sure it would be way too awkward. Besides, I may not be in love with him, but I still care for him, I mean, I’m the first one who’s heartbroken at the idea of not having fallen head over heels for him, all right? So there’s just no way in hell, or whatever afterlife you happen to believe in, that I’m going to keep working there while pregnant with another man’s baby. Especially one who’s been conceived, like, 2 days after I broke up with Ray? I mean, I know that sometimes I can be dense, but….”

“You are what?” “You slept with Ollie?” What did you say?” They almost all screams at the same time, with the exception of Layla, who’s smiling enigmatically, like she and Felicity were now part of a sisterhood or something like that. Maybe she is simply the one with a little bit of compassion, as she’s been herself in that situation, too. 

“Ok guys, slow down, will you? I’ll answer each and every question. Yes, I’m pregnant, yes, it’s Oliver’s, we slept together in Nanda Parbat, no, it wasn’t because I thought it was the only way the get him out of the system and no, I didn’t tell Thea, but I’m pretty sure she knows. Also because, as smart as I am, I forgot to hide better the pregnancy test. Probably because it’s not like I’m that expert in that department, and… and you know what? I don’t care. I’m happy that I’m having this child- terrified? Yes, but happy too. And not only because it’s Oliver’s. So, in case you were wondering, the answer is yes also to the question if I’m going to keep it or not. As in, yes I’m keeping it. And again, it’s not because it’s Oliver’s. I mean, it is partly because it’s Oliver’s, but it’s not the main reason and…”

“Will you marry me?” Tommy suddenly says. And he doesn’t know for sure why he asked himself, if he has to be honest. 

And it’s also probably what the others are thinking too, as they look at him sometimes scandalized, sometimes disappointed, sometimes with an expression that seems to scream _you know you are saying bullshit, right? Are you an idiot or what?_

That, he should say, it’s Felicity’s expression. Felicity, who keeps quiet and looks at him like he was an idiot who had just disappointed yet again his father- an expression he is all too familiar with, for obvious reasons. 

“In my defense, I thought I was doing the honorable thing, as, given the circumstances, I’ll probably be the closest thing this baby will have to a father.”

“Tommy, this is the twenty-fist century. A woman doesn’t need to be married to have and raise a child!” Laurel looks at him like he was an idiot. And really- he is starting to feel like one. “Although I can understand that it may be too middle-class for you. High classes and 1 percenters don’t like scandals, right? They are all about appearances and…”

“Laurel? I think we all get it, all right? No need to transform in me and say thing you’ll end up taking back.”

Laurel- definitely not used to Felicity being the voice of reason- puts a little, but then she whispers a sorry under her teeth and she compose herself once again. 

“Ok, now, as I think you’ve understood, I’m so not going to marry you, Tommy- nothing against you in particular, but I’m not looking for pity, and like Laurel said, and like I’m pretty much evidence of, a woman can raise a child on her own. So you’ll all be uncles and aunts to this baby, who will have _my name,_ who will know that their father couldn’t be with us because someone took him away, and before you say something utterly stupid, like telling me I could tell Ray he is the father and I should marry into the Palmer household?”

She looks John, who smiles a “cat-got-the-canary-but-I’m-irresistible-so-don’t-be-mad” smile and lifts his hands in mock surrender. “Ehy, I haven’s said a word.”

“Nope, you were just thinking it, I could practically see the words forming into your mind. Anyway- no, when I’ll tell Ray, I’ll be honest, and even if he’ll propose, which he could be very well do as he is just too much like you, Tommy, I’ll say no. 

She packs Tommy on the knee, and then she makes her way to the kitchen, where she grabs a glass of water, her knuckles turning white against the cold glass. 

This is her family right now, and in seven months, it will get a little bit bigger. But never as big as she’d like to. 

Because Oliver will never be there to see their child- he will never be there to love her, to love them. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As he gets ready to marry Nyssa and burn Starling down, Al Sah-im is faced with the knowledge that the woamn who had been his lover for one nighht when he still was Oliver Queen is carrying his heir- and he and Ra's have different plans for the child.

He knows that Oliver Queen told her that she should be happy and live her life out there- that it would have been the only way he would have survived. 

But, he isn’t Oliver Queen any longer; Oliver Queen is all but a memory, and only the Arrow remains now, as man can’t live by two names and he has chosen- the moment he has ascended to the throne of heir to the Demon. 

Oliver Queen loved Felicity Smoak. 

He isn’t Oliver Queen any longer- ergo, he shouldn’t love her any longer. And even if he indeed was still Oliver… he knows that Oliver Queen would have wanted her to be free. To live. He would have never been shocked by what he was seeing. He would have been happy for her. But only if she was happy, and Felicity- his Felicity- doesn’t have any trace of happiness on her beautiful, sweet features. 

He shouldn’t feel something steel in his heart as he sees her pregnant form- regret and fear and disappointment and hope and love and happiness and so many feeling all mixed together. 

He shouldn’t feel them because he is The Heir to the Demon, promised in marriage to the daughter of his mentor, his master and Lord.. He isn’t Oliver Queen any longer.

And yet…

He gulps down a mouthful of saliva, hoping that they didn’t see it, that nobody did, as he can’t show any weakness. Part of him would like to tell them to leave, would ask Tommy to take care of her for him, rise the child as it was his own. 

(Even if he knows there’s no need to- Tommy will- he would have done it anyway.)

“Oliver, please…” she begs with tears in her eyes, tears she had rarely shown before, even to him, the one she trusted the most, her hands on her pregnant belly, protecting her creature- _their creature._ “Oliver, please. I know you are still somewhere there. Whatever he wants you to do…”

As she keeps pleading him with tears in her beautiful eyes, her voice broken by sorrow, he vanishes in the night, the vial of the virus still in his hands, and even if he knows how Ra’s will react, he knows what he has to do- because he may not be Oliver Queen any longer, but the Arrow, he belonged to Starling. He belonged to her… and the child…. His child…. It changes everything. 

He doesn’t feel anything. It’s not a weakness. It’s a resolution, and a matter of honor, and Ra’s better understands it. 

“Why isn’t your city burning?” Ra’s asks him once he is back, looking at the cold winter, at the snow covering everything. The end is near, he knows it all too well- that’s why he has chosen a successor- but in days like these, he feels it much more. “What about the weapon? Do you still have it?”

“The weapon it’s in a safe place. I’d never dared to destroy it, not when I know what it’s meant for. But…” The Arrow, Al Sah-im simply says, kneeling before his master and offering him his words, like it’s League’s costume. “But I’m sorry to say that there’s been a change of plan.”

“You mean, you showed weakness.” Ra’s’ eyes looks through him, fiery and without compassion; the man who used to be Oliver Queen doesn’t tremble, well aware of what it means to defy the league’s lord and master. He failed him- and he is ready to face whatever punishment will come his way, even death, if this will be what The Daemon’s Head will chose. 

“No, My Lord and Master, but the woman…” he speaks of her like she belonged to another time, to another man, like they had never met before, and even his own heart clenches painfully, despite not showing it to his opponent. “She is pregnant. She is carrying my heir. I desire for them to remain safe- so that I could take the child with my, and rise it as you command to follow into the League’s footsteps.”

Ra’s takes a big breath, and thinks. He knows too of what his heir is going through- he was presented the same choice a long time before. And centuries before, he took the right choice- the only choice he could have made. 

He took the mantle, condemned his family and took as his wife the daughter of his predecessor, so that both bloodlines would merge together, making the League so much stronger. 

Al Sah-im is now presented with the same choice, and Ra’s Al Ghoul knows he’ll not take the right decision- because deep in his heart, seeing that woman had stirred something in his pupil, ruining all his precious and long work. 

The Arrow lives. Oliver Queen lives. Al Sah-im was dead once he discovered that his love-the love of his previous life- was carrying his child. 

“I don’t have long left anymore, and if you want to ascend to my throne… you know what you shall do. Marry my daughter, and kill them all. Show me that Oliver Queen is but a memory in the back of Al Sah-im’s soul, and you’ll be rewarded with all my power, and the loyalty of my people.”

Ra’s turns, quickly, and his blade touches Oliver’s neck, ready to strike will the answer not please him- and he knows it will not. Because now he can see it in his pupil’s eyes- without bathing into the holy waters of the Lazarus Pit, Oliver Queen was reborn by the power of love. By a woman’s look.

He smirks. He may have liked her, and maybe, just maybe, in another world, another time, he would have allowed Al Sah-im to keep her as his concubine, maybe even his bride… but in her stubbornness and foolishness the woman can’t see the difference between stupidity and courage.

“If this is your answer, then… you know what you have to do. The only way to have my mantle is to receive it from me… or get it from my cold, dead body. Fight, Oliver Queen, the Arrow. Show me what a man moved by love can do.”

And, indeed, they fight. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Felicity moves to Central City, Tommy tags along and discovers secret identities he wasn't aware of yet.

Oliver doesn’t return. 

She gives birth in spring, and it’s not in Starling- nor in Vegas or Gotham, where now Roy (Dick, she keeps remembering herself, he is Dick Grayson now, thank you very much, people of Argus and Checkmate, for a brand new identity.) and Thea lives, fighting crime together, but it’s in Central City, where she has become BFF with Gideon, Barry’s (future) AI, which she seems will have an hand in creating, and she and Cisco goes all sci-fi on each other, wondering if they’ll do what they’ll do just because they’ve met Gideon and Gideon told them things and show them things, and that’s why time travel gives her an headache.

Tommy has left Starling too, moving next door to her so that he can look after her and yet she wouldn’t feel pressured to take him in her life (not as her boyfriend- but yeah, he admits that the idea of friends with benefits has crossed his mind, because one year before he would have castrated himself just for thinking it, but pregnant woman are hot…), even if sometimes, just sometimes, he wonders if they’ll ever be more than friends. 

_ Only an idiot wouldn’t know about the people with powers popping out in Central City, so, when, one evening at Felicity’s place, while having dinner,Caitlin Snow, a little embarrassed, tells him he looks good for a guy who’s been dead for a couple of years, he answers honestly (because, worst case scenario, she’ll label him a mean idiot).  _

_ “Oh, no, it’s just that my father’s former mentor, the head of the League of Assassins? To get back at my father, he and his daughter resurrected me with a magical hot pool of sort called the Lazarus Pit.” He is worried when Caitlin and Cisco doesn’t look surprised- curios, yes, but they definitely don’t look at him like he was telling stories. “Why do I have the impression that you actually believe me?” _

_ They all exchange looks, especially with the guy he knows Felicity used to have the hots for, Barry, and then, Barry does something Tommy would have never thought possible, between the smiles and the giggles of his friends: he runs. Like, Flash runs. And it’s indeed with a costume of the Scarlet Speedster that he reappears in a fraction of second. _

_ Felicity chuckles. “Geez, it was about time you did it. I mean, do you have any idea how hard it was to keep working at Star labs without risking having Tommy discovering our own personal super-prison? And, also, I think we are all aware that keeping secret identities a secret isn’t my forte, so, high five, or whatever anyone?” _

_ “You know?!” she doesn’t know if it’s a question or an affirmation. Tommy probably doesn’t know either. _

_ “Yah, just, like, for years. You were pretty much the only one of the group to not know that Barry is the Flash. And Thea. And… did we tell Roy? Because I’m pretty sure he knows but I’m not 1005 sure…” _

_ “3,2,1,” they say together, and Felicity laughs so much she has tears in her eyes. _

She has given birth just few hours before, but even if exhausted- even if it’s late at night- she can’t sleep; she simply stays on her side, and looks at the cradle at the side of the bed, skimming over it with a tender and happy smile on her lips, one she hadn’t had in a long time. __

“Are you actually still awake?” a voice whispers in the dark, filled with marvel and disappointed. She shouldn’t be awake. And he should be able to take in his arms his God-daughter (even if, technically, she isn’t, as Felicity is Jewish) without having the mother harassing him. 

Felicity turns on the light on the bedside table, and looks at Tommy like a disappointed parent would (his favorite expression of hers). “Please tell me you didn’t have a quickie with the nurse…”

“Of course I didn’t! I have more class than this!” he chuckles. “And anyway, we just made out for a while. And it’s enough, and had you ever bothered to check, you would know that kissing is my super-power to get whatever I want whenever I want it. Speaking of which, you should really have me tested at Star Labs, because I think I may be related to Venus or some other Love deity, because what I do to women? Totally unnatural.”

She laughs, and he laughs too, and he is glad that it worked, because if he can keep her mind out of her problems (Oliver, still Oliver, always Oliver) even for just a short while, than it means that he is doing his job as a friend.

Sitting on the bed, he looks at the baby at his side, and skims over her bracelet- baby Smoak, it says. “Not decided on a name yet?”

She shakes her head, sighing. “I really don’t know. All I know is that the world isn’t ready yet for another Donna Smoak, so at least is one name less, but besides that? I don’t have any other dead friends to honor other than Sara, and Diggle already called his daughter like that, and I’m so not going to call her like someone who’s still alive and we know, because, hello? I don’t want to hear about picking favorites, all right? So I thought about maybe calling her Moira, but I fear it would be too obvious who her father is, which is totally idiotic, I know, and besides, I don’t want to make her Thea cry, and she would be so cry, because underneath all that Arrowette thought girl routine she is such a softie that she will cry her eyes dry. So I thought….” She finally stops, and smiles, and takes a big breath as her eyes meet Tommy’s- which is grateful for her silence because, as used to her as he is, he was starting to get an headache. “She’ll not be baptized, but I wouldn’t mind having you as a God-father of sort, and as such, would you like to choose her name? Just for your information, I’ve decided that it will either be Chloe or Mia.” She claps her hands together, all happy. He smiles too, as this is how Felicity should have been right from the start, and has never been enough.

“Mia” he says, and he doesn’t even have to think about it.

… and Felicity sighs, massaging the bridge of her nose. “Please tell me you didn’t choose Mia because it sounds good with the surname Queen.” She is that close to hissing it, but she doesn’t- there’s still a part of her that loves Oliver, always will, and not only because he is the father of her child.

“You saw the article that Gideon showed us. It talks about the Green Arrow. You said it yourself that it’s the name my father suggested to Ollie…” he looks at her, sure. He knows what he saw. And he hopes- no, he knows- what it means. Because he knows Oliver. And Ollie is better than a mere assassin, and…”

She shakes her head, a bit exasperated because since they let him on team Flash’s secret, since they showed him the computer from the future, Tommy has said the same things over and over again. 

“Tommy, we haven’t heard from him- or about him for what it matters- since we last saw him in Staling. You heard Malcom- to become the next Ra’s, he was supposed to burn his homeland down. And he didn’t. We all know what it means. And besides, it’s a name- not _his_ name. it could have been anyone. Malcom, Roy…”

“You mean the guy who’s been fighting crime in Gotham with Batman under the name of Nightwing?”

She groans. “As far as we know, it could be anyone. Malcom, Roy, Thea, Diggle, maybe even you, or who knows who. I mean, the article was dated 2024! Someone else altogether may have taken the mantle!” She says, almost hysterical, because they know very well what had probably happen: Oliver didn’t follow Ra’s’ orders. It means that their friend is long gone. Dead. 

He doesn’t add another word. He kisses Felicity on the forehead and walks away.

He has done enough damage as it is for tonight. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the end, my friends, the end....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for over 200 kudos and almost 8000 hints for this story. I know this isn't what we all thought it would be when I started it over one year ago, but stories, thanks to muses, often take a different direction from what the author would like them to...  
> Also, some spoilers for The Flash.

Mia Darden Smoak’s first birthday comes and goes in an heartbeat; it’s been an year, and it’s almost frightening how little things have changed. They still live in Central City, in the same apartment next door to Tommy, and Felicity still works at Star Labs. 

On top of that, she now consults with the CSI division when they have to deal with cyber-crime, and everything it’s just a blessing because between Tommy and the possibility of bringing Mia with her on the job (both jobs) she doesn’t need neither a nanny or a daycare. 

She has tried to date. And it has failed miserably, both when they were a little bit more than one night stands and also when she looked for something more serious, something that could help erase the pain and forget Oliver once and for all. 

I’s not Barry- because they already know that it was impossible for them to work, and besides, there’s destiny, and as the article from Gideon says, Iris will one day be his wife. 

It’s definitely not Cisco- too brotherly for her. it was, really, like incest. And besides, sometimes he looks like a child. Ok, often. Way too often. She would feel like a pedophile sleeping with him.

She doesn’t want to even contemplate the idea of dating Tommy, even if, one drunken night, one glass of red wine too many, they start making out on her couch at the sound of the television (Grey’s anatomy- Meredith is gotten married again, to a cop this time, and Jackson and April are finally having a child) until she remembers that it’s Tommy underneath her and she almost feels sick (they don’t look at each other for weeks, not until he is finally able to kiss another woman and he finally, finally gets that he has never been into Felicity, and he just loves her like a sister, or a caretaker of sort).

It’s not Ray- even if he is often working in Central City, both as Ray Palmer and The Atom, and they are a fantastic team, and sometime she sees something in his eyes, in the way he’d almost touch her, hold her hand but then he stops himself- regret and what ifs filling his mind with memories of their brief time together.

She dates Eddie- as in, they seriously date, get to know each other’s families, practically move in together, act as a married couple, sort of seriously dating.

Mostly, though, it’s because she needs to date someone who’s already aware of all of their little secrets and will understand her light nights and sudden disappearances during their dates and also because… well, he is just as broken-hearted as she is. 

Eddie is a good, decent man, is fantastic with her daughter and her, the sex is good and he can even cook, which is rare in a man. After all, she can barely cook herself. But mostly, as his heart is broken too (he’ll never get over Iris), he doesn’t pressure her into having- and wanting- more. He’ll never have her heart, her soul, and strangely enough, he is ok with it all.

Until he isn’t any longer. 

It’s not really that he wants more from her; Eddie simply knows that it has reached a time in his life where he is ready to have more; he is old enough to be a father, and being around Mia just deepens his desire. He loves the child, she’ll always be his niece, but he is starting to crave a child of his own, being there from the start and being a part of it, not just a mere witness into someone else’s tale. He knows he’ll never have it from Iris- maybe it’s the whole reason he and Felicity started “dating”, because they were both heartbroken and couldn’t have what they wanted- and he knows he can’t have it from her, too, as part of her (her biggest part) will always belong to Oliver. 

That’s why he tells her when he meets a woman on the job; he likes her, but nothing has happened besides coffee shared during their shift, and nothing will, if Felicity will take him, because as unconventional as their relationship can be, he isn’t just that kind of man. 

There’s a part of her that would just jump in Eddie’s arms and tell him that it’s been over with Oliver for years, that he is the one she loves and that she is ready to give and get more, but she can’t bring herself to lie. She doesn’t even have to talk: Eddie understands it all, and he hugs her, and she hugs him back, burying her face in the crock of his neck, blemishing his immaculate white shirt with a mix of tears, mascara, foundation, eye-liner, eye-shadow and even lipstick.

Eddie doesn’t talk, because Detective Pretty Boy is just so damn perfect and understanding. He simply kisses her forehead and the crown of her hair, in the same way Tommy always does when she needs to be reassured or comforted, and holds her tightly in his arms. 

And it’s because he is so damn good that, on her daughter’s first birthday, he gives her a folder, pieces of information he and Joe had collected in the last few months with the help of fellow “heroes”, the mysterious Batman included (especially him- it seems he may have some morbid connection to the League too. Rumors has it he slept and had a child with Nyssa’s sister, and even maybe being a student to Ra’s in person). 

It’s not exactly on Oliver. 

It’s about the League. 

And about how anyone hasn’t heard from and of them in over a year…

* * *

Something awakes her in the middle of the night- her daughter’s first birthday- and that’s when she finds him watching over Mia’s sleeping form, sitting in civil clothes on her the cold pavement with a dreamy expression and that smile, sincere and happy- which was so rare and that forced her to fall hard for him.

He wears his old clothes- billionaire Oliver Queen clothes- and he is just perfect; she can see the almost two years they’ve been apart have left their mark on his body, on the lines on his forehead, and yet his eyes are the same as the day he first kissed her, as the day they made love in Nanda Parbat. 

She doesn’t talk, she simply joins him and seats right before him, her head against Mia’s bed, her eyes going through Oliver’s very being like laser beans. 

“I couldn’t come back yet.”

“It’s ok, you had a lot to do.” She simply says. And she wonders if she believes it, but Oliver shakes his head; there’s too much to talk about, and she isn’t sure she wants to; part of her is scared of what he’ll answer if she’ll ask him about his bride, Nyssa, the one his mentor, Ra’s in person, had offered him on a silver plate. 

“No, I couldn’t come back yet. I wasn’t… I couldn’t be worthy you yet. But… I didn’t think it would have taken me that long.” She smiles as he talks with a soft voice, his whispers loud in the silence of the room, filled only by Mia’s quiet and regular breathing. She takes his hand in her own, and smiles as bright as never before, even if it’s a smile tainted by sorrow and regrets and lost chances and opportunities and wasted time- simply because they are together, all three of them, finally. 

“You told Ra’s that the League of Assassins was made of cowards who couldn’t deal with the pain, with reality- and you were right. That’s why I defeated him, and made the League in something else… I took over the League so I could destroy it… Ra’s didn’t care about the people who served him. to him, they were faceless and disposable, and he threw them away like it was nothing. Every one of my League… it’s someone I’ve rescued. Every one of them came to me freely, saved from the ones who enslaved and abused them. They are my brothers and sisters, and they serve justice- and not death and vengeance.”

She doesn’t say a word. She simply smiles, because she understands his words, the meaning behind them: this new League he formed, it’s not the League of Assassins, nor Ra’s’ League or The Arrow’s or Al Sah-im’s- it’s Oliver’s, because it reflects everything he has ever done for his family and his city.

She sighs; she should have known- it’s Oliver they are talking about, after all- and besides, Eddie’s intel had suggested something in that line; of course, it didn’t say anything in particular, but if even Argus and Checkmate hadn’t heard in over a year about the League of Assassins, it had to mean something. Consciously, she knew, but until now, she hadn’t dared to hope. Not until she hasn’t seen him right before her with her own eyes.

“We can stay here. Or we can move back to Staling. Or go wherever you want to- if you’ll have me, I’ll never leave your side, Felicity.” He smiles, and he doesn’t have to ask her to follow him, or to be with him. They both know where they stand, after all, and it’s not an assumption based on arrogance on his side, because he may have asked Felicity to not wait for him, he may have ordered her to be happy and live her own life, but they both know, they’ve always known, that despite the promises, they would have always belonged to each other, one way or another. 

She smiles and stands, giving him her hands to help him out, and together they reach her bedroom, and fall asleep into each other’s arms, for the very first time since they met so many years before when he asked for help with a bullet-ridden laptop. 

And it’s that way that Tommy finds them the next morning, when he goes to prepare breakfast for “his” lady and her mother; he shakes his head, chuckling, and after having fed Mia her bottle and decided that she’s going to spend the day with him, he leaves a bottle of excellent wine out for his friends along with a note. 

He tells them Mia is with him. 

And he wishes them good luck. 

Even if he doesn’t think they’ll need it any longer. 

Now they have each other, after all.


End file.
